


the one they tore down

by fabrega



Series: SALTapalooza [14]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 13:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13032537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: In the split second between when the ceiling starts to collapse and when the rubble hits them--what Reaper ought to do is go into his wraith form, let the debris fall without harming him. What he does, without thinking about it, withouthesitating, is throw himself protectively across Jesse McCree.





	the one they tore down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smarshtastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/gifts).



> Week Thirteen of SALTapalooza! Today's prompt was "trapped in a...", so enjoy some close quarters!
> 
> This is part fourteen of our fourteen part series - we've all made it to the end!
> 
> Feel free to come yell at [me](https://twitter.com/carithlee) or [smarshtastic](https://twitter.com/smarshtastic) about this on twitter!

The ceiling collapses suddenly.

It shouldn't surprise him. The mercenaries had been shouting that they didn't _have_ to bring Reaper (or McCree) in alive. Then, the two of them had holed up in the basement of this abandoned building and hadn't let any of the mercenaries get close enough for 'dead or alive' to become a pressing concern. It only makes sense that they'd bring the building down on top of them. Blackwatch had done this kind of building collapse, once or twice, when all that had been required was the kind of proof of death that could be pulled from the rubble.

The thing that does surprise him, though, is what he does in the split second between when the ceiling starts to collapse and when the rubble hits them. What Reaper ought to do is go into his wraith form, let the debris fall without harming him. What he does, without thinking about it, without _hesitating_ , is throw himself protectively across Jesse McCree.

He shouldn't. He has no reason to. It makes no sense. Less than an hour ago, he'd tried to kill McCree. He'd stared at McCree's smirking face down the length of his shotgun for a long moment--after a drawn-out pursuit and a fairly violent tussle, before the mercenaries had crashed through the windows and they'd found themselves, however temporarily, on the same side. But they are both in danger, the building falling down around them, and somehow, _somehow_ , Reaper's instinct is to protect McCree.

It hurts. It hurts a _lot_ , and Reaper is pretty sure, just before he blacks out, that it's not just the heavy chunks of building.

.

The dust is still setting when he comes to. He drags himself up into a sitting position and surveys the room, or what's left of it. It used to be much bigger, for one--what had been a fairly large room before is now maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet, hemmed in on all sides by what's left of the existing walls and huge piles of what used to be the building above them. His own injuries are minor, although his body is the sort of warm that indicates to him that his cellular regeneration has been working overtime to get him back to this state. He's also not under any debris, which seems unlikely to have happened by itself. It's possible that he went into wraith form while he was unconscious, but more likely he was moved.

McCree is leaning up against one wall, as far from Reaper as he can get in the small space, a short trail of blood through the dust between here and there. On the floor next to him is what looks like a pocket key chain, the kind you squeeze to light; McCree seems to have taken a medium-sized piece of debris and set it on top of the key chain, producing constant illumination. He's hunched protectively in on himself, and his breathing, when Reaper hears it, is a little ragged.

Reaper staggers to his feet, as fully upright as the space will allow, and moves towards McCree, who flinches and raises his gun to point it at Reaper.

"Not a step closer," McCree grits out.

Something twinges in Reaper's chest.

"You're hurt," he says.

McCree shrugs, an abortive movement. "Fail to see how that's any of your concern."

"These assholes aren't going to leave here without proof of life or death, and if you're not up for the fight when they get down here, it's going to be proof of death."

"Ah." McCree's chuckle ends quickly in a wince. "So you don't actually care. I'm just your way out."

Reaper doesn't answer that. Above them, he can faintly hear voices and the sound of machinery. It makes sense that they'd have the excavation stuff on hand before they brought the building down, so they could begin extracting their prizes as soon as the dust cleared. It sounds like he and McCree may not have much time.

"I don't suppose you know if there was an infirmary down here anywhere?" Reaper asks, only half-serious. There's nothing in the space that could be used to patch McCree up, and it needs to be done before the mercs get to them. McCree hadn't been wrong about being Reaper's way out.

McCree chuckles again, despite the pain it obviously causes him. "Wouldn't that be nice. No, no infirmary that I know of, although there may have been an old stockroom towards the other end of the building, for all the good it does us now."

Reaper checks along the edges of the space, finding one or two small openings--too small for a person to fit, but large enough that he can probably wraith through. If McCree is right about the stockroom, maybe he can make it there (or what's left of there) and see if there are any supplies still intact they can use.

He stands and turns to McCree. "I'll be back."

"Like hell you will."

Reaper pauses--another thing he probably ought to have expected. "This will be hard if you don't trust me."

"You tried to _kill me._ You think I'm gonna trust you?"

Reaper hesitates, then reaches up and removes his mask. It feels manipulative, to use the surprise of his old identity like this, _now_ , but--

"I know who you are, asshole," McCree says. When Reaper doesn't have a response to that, he continues, a little more quietly, "I knew who you were the moment I saw you. A person doesn't just forget a thing like that."

"You didn't say anything."

"Neither did you." McCree sighs. "Go, do whatever you're gonna do. Come back, or don't--I'm finding it real hard to care right now."

Reaper refuses to let himself get riled, so he goes incorporeal and heads off through the debris in the direction McCree had indicated the stockroom had been. The rubble is a twisting maze, and it takes several tries before he takes form in anything that's even approaching the right place. When he does find it, the room is mostly destroyed; still, he manages to find a small cache of biotics, a better lantern, a bag of old meal bars and a jug of water, and a string of grenades.

Reaper looks down at the things he's holding. Why _is_ he doing this? He ought to run. He owes McCree nothing; anything he'd ever owed McCree, anything he'd ever felt for McCree, had been burned out of him long ago. He'd been another person then, one who'd had feelings, one who'd been hurt when McCree had chosen to leave him.

What this is, he tells himself, is survival. He owes McCree nothing, but McCree owes _him_. No one gets to kill Jesse McCree but him--no one gets to make that decision until after Reaper has. That's why he'd tracked McCree using his own resources, on his own time, not involving Talon. The Council would have had opinions that complicated things. Maybe the Council would have decided that one washed-up cowboy wasn't worth the trouble, even if he was ex-Blackwatch, even if he'd helped basically write the Blackwatch playbook that a lot of Talon now used. Maybe they wouldn't have sent Reaper after him, opting instead for a friendlier face, like Sombra, or even Edwards. Maybe they'd have decided he was too much trouble to leave alive, after everything.

Anyway, this way, if Reaper returns with McCree on Talon's side, it's a coup, and if he doesn't, no one's the wiser. McCree's survival is important to them both getting out of here alive, but also because Reaper hasn't made up his mind yet.

He shakes his head, coming out of his reverie, back into the stockroom. He tucks the things he's holding up into his wraith form with his supply of shotguns and goes incorporeal again, making his way back to where he'd left McCree.

The light of McCree's pocket key chain is dimmer when Reaper gets back. "Took you long enough," McCree says, not managing to entirely hide his wince in his sarcasm.

Reaper sets up the lantern first thing and then tosses McCree one of the biotic field canisters, which McCree catches easily with his left hand and cracks open. The room is bathed in the glow of the healing light, and McCree makes a small, satisfied noise, his breathing evening out almost immediately. He lowers his gun and closes his eyes, and whatever had twinged in Reaper's chest earlier hits him again.

"If you'd wanted to kill me, you wouldn't have come back," McCree says, not opening his eyes, and Reaper finds that he has no response.

They sit there like that for a minute or two, quiet, listening to the sounds of the mercenaries getting closer above them.

"They're gonna be here soon," McCree says eventually. Dust has started drifting down into the room from the shifting debris above them. McCree grabs his gun and stands as best he can, as a small shaft of light trickles into the room, the debris above them cleared enough now to let the daylight in. Reaper collects his things, tucking the lantern away now that they don't need it, and leaps to his feet too; he looks up at the daylight and then over at McCree.

"What's the plan, Reyes?"

Reaper doesn't manage to stifle a disgusted noise. "That's not my name." He realizes suddenly that he'd never put his mask back on, and remedies this quickly.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to call you 'Code-name Reaper'. That's a bunch of horseshit."

"Fitting, from the man dressed like an extra in one of those old Westerns."

McCree snorts. "I think you're gonna regret keeping me alive, _Gabe_."

"Trust me, I already do."

More light pours into the room. Reaper remembers the grenades he'd picked up and, against his better judgment, shoves a few at McCree.

"Can you still Deadeye? Safely?" Reaper asks, his eyes on the light.

McCree makes a noise, mostly affirmative, a little amused.

"Start with that and we'll see how it goes," Reaper says, and then the light bursts in and brings a bunch of mercenaries with it.

The ensuing fight goes surprisingly well. Like Reaper had asked, McCree starts with Deadeye, whispering _step right up_ and dropping the first six mercs immediately. The small space works to their advantage; only a few mercs can drop in at a time, and they're more than a match for everything that can be thrown at them. It's funny, Reaper thinks in the back of his mind, how normal this feels, fighting side by side with McCree. It's been years, but they fall into the familiar rhythm quickly and easily, almost like they'd never stopped. Somehow he knows exactly where McCree is going to be without looking, knows exactly what next move McCree is going to make and where he needs to be to complement it, and his body and his shotguns comply without him even trying.

At one point, McCree turns to him, grinning, and Reaper finds himself grinning back underneath his mask.

Survival. Right.

Things go a little sideways towards the end of the fight. A big guy drops in, better equipped than his compatriots were, and circles them menacingly in the small space. If guys like him were up there the whole time, Reaper's not sure why they even bothered with the cannon fodder goons they'd been sending in so far. He lets loose a roar and runs at Reaper, who turns to smoke and slips out of his grip. This seems to make the guy mad, and he turns, pulling out a large rifle and spraying bullets across the room. McCree rolls out of the way of the incoming fire, past the guy so that he can pop up behind him and smack him in the head with the stupid spur on the butt of his pistol. The guy staggers, but he doesn't go down, doesn't even stop shooting; two of the bullets graze Reaper and a third goes through his left shoulder, and he hisses in pain and fires back.

They go like this for longer than it ought to take, circling around each other, trading shots back and forth. To Reaper's surprise, McCree steps up to cover his weak left side as his cells attempt to regenerate under pressure, mending the bullet wound in his shoulder, healing bit by bit as Reaper fires at the big guy.

It seems like they're finally done when the guy falls forward, their tenacity and barrage of gunfire having worn him down. He grabs for McCree as he goes down, and misses; McCree takes a satisfied step back out of reach anyway, shooting the guy in the head. A second step back in the small space and he collides with Reaper, spinning on impact; it's the first actual contact they've had, the first time Reaper has touched McCree in--

Then the big guy's corpse explodes.

.

Reaper blinks awake in the dark, disoriented for a moment before the pain hits. Then he remembers: McCree, the mercs, the explosions. He's not entirely sure what had happened, but if he had to guess, the big guy had grabbed the grenades off of McCree's belt as he fell.

He takes stock of his current situation. The pain seems to mostly be coming from his arm, which won't move when he tries to move it. Everything else hurts but not nearly as badly. There's something heavy on top of him, but with a little effort, Reaper shifts it. (It doesn't feel solid like building debris. It feels like a body. Reaper does not think about this, instead focusing on what's important right now.)

He maneuvers the arm that will move into his coat, pulls out the lantern from earlier, and turns it on. The bright light illuminates what turns out to be a very small space, a little hollow made by pieces of steel and concrete that have fallen just so. The arm he can't move is wedged under a large steel beam; the weight he shifted off of himself had been McCree.

He uses his free arm to check his comm: no signal. Even if he'd wanted to call Talon for help, he couldn't. At least he doesn't hear movement above. Presumably the mercenaries figure that there's no way they could've survived an explosion like that--or, at the very least, that they're not worth the trouble they've caused.

Okay, okay, one problem at a time.

He closes his eyes and concentrates on ignoring the pain before turning to smoke for a moment and extracting his arm. When he turns solid again, it still hangs limply at his side, but at least he's not trapped anymore...well, not _immediately_ trapped anymore. They'll have to see if there's a real way out of here.

He sits up--the space is just barely tall enough for him to do so--and leans over to examine McCree. McCree's chest is moving, but just barely, and his pulse, when Reaper finds it, is weak. Reaper fumbles in his coat for the biotic field generators and cracks one open on the ground between them.

McCree doesn't move. Reaper waits, soaking up a little of the biotic healing himself. His arm doesn't feel like it's getting better, which worries him a bit. He's healed from injuries like this before, but it had always been in battle, letting the pain he inflicted mend his wounds.

He looks down at McCree. There's more color in his cheeks than there had been, and his pulse is stronger. He'll almost certainly pull through.

Reaper does the terrible math. To patch himself up, he'd need two, maybe three clean shots on McCree. They've got enough biotics to patch McCree up after, and then some. If it wasn't McCree, it wouldn't even be a question--so why is it with McCree?

He waits until the biotic field runs out, cracks open another one, then pulls out his shotgun. He can't stand, there's not space, but he aims at McCree from his seated position carefully, trying for the cleanest hit that will be easiest to heal. It's an impossible task, he knows, but one he ought to attempt nevertheless.

He pulls the trigger.

Ugly wounds bloom on McCree's unconscious body. Reaper feels rejuvenated, but knows it's not enough, knows he needs to take another shot. He waits, though, watching for McCree to recover. The wounds stay bright and gruesome for longer than it feels like they should, and something like regret gnaws on Reaper's gut.

Finally, after the gunshots have started to mend and the color has returned to McCree's cheeks, Reaper pulls the trigger a second time. The sweet and painful feeling of his bones and sinews knitting back together sings in his blood. McCree jolts out of unconsciousness, his eyes flying open, and he sits up and draws his own gun, taking several shots at Reaper. Reaper dodges, turns to smoke and lets the shots go through him and bury themselves in the debris behind him.

"What the _hell_?" McCree says, sitting up after a little bit of a struggle. The look he gives Reaper is angry and hurt, and when Reaper takes form again, McCree's pistol is at his temple immediately. This time, though, McCree doesn't shoot. He knocks Reaper's mask off and scowls directly at Reaper's bare face.

"It's how I heal," Reaper says. "I wouldn't have done it if I didn't need to."

"You _needed_ to shoot me," McCree says. It seems like it ought to be a question, but it doesn't sound like a question.

"I did what I needed to do to survive," Reaper says. "Just like I always have."

"Good to see that you're still an overdramatic asshole." McCree lowers his gun, but doesn't put it away, just sets it in his lap. His gaze finally darts away from Reaper to look around at their situation. His eyes go wide as he takes in the small space and the lack of apparent exits, and his breathing goes high and shallow again.

Oh, right. Reaper remembers McCree's fear of enclosed spaces from their Blackwatch days, remembers the incidents in Peru and China before they'd gotten him in to see the therapist. It had gotten better after that, but, as is apparent now, had never really gone away. When he got like this, he was worse than useless, prone to making impulsive, dangerous decisions that risked his life and the lives of others around him--which is why it had been so important for him to get to that therapist--and Reaper knows that if they want to make it out of here, he needs to calm McCree down before things gets out of hand.

"Hey," Reaper says, trying to modulate his voice to something approaching gentle, "We'll be okay. It'll be okay. Remember that time in the submarine--"

"No. _No_. How _dare_ you. That is a good memory, and I _refuse_ to associate it with, with this, with _you_."

Reaper doesn't respond. It's his memory too--good, like McCree says, but tinged with anger, regret, just like everything else about Jesse McCree--but also McCree's fury about it has coincided with an ease in his breathing.

"Why are you trying to be nice to me? What are you even doing here? Shouldn't you have turned into smoke and fucked off by now?"

"Debris is packed too tight for me to make it to the surface," Reaper says with a small shrug. "We're going to have to get out of here the hard way."

McCree squeezes his eyes closed and takes some deep breaths. Reaper counts along in his head, says aloud _in, out, in, out_.

"Shut up," McCree snaps.

Reaper shuts up.

They sit in silence for a while, Reaper evaluating the structure above them, McCree seemingly just breathing. Reaper doesn't put the mask back on; what's the point? He tucks it away inside his coat instead. When McCree's stomach growls, Reaper fishes the bag of meal bars out of his pockets and hands one to McCree, who takes it and chews on it wordlessly. Reaper moves as far away from McCree as he can in the small space; the distance between them is not nearly enough, Reaper knows, but somehow also much too much.

"You're wrong, you know," McCree says out of the blue.

"Am I."

"I know you find it hard to believe." He opens his eyes and fixes Reaper with a wry look. "But you're wrong. You haven't always just done what you needed to do to survive. We're the proof, you and I."

Anger flares in the pit of Reaper's stomach. "Of course I didn't mean _us_. What we had was never a game or a trick. I was never using you; I _loved_ you. If you think for a _second_ that I didn't..." He pauses, takes one of those deep breaths that's been doing McCree so much good. "I'm not a monster."

McCree doesn't answer right away; when he does, he gestures vaguely at Reaper and says, "I mean, you kind of are."

Reaper growls. "That's not what I meant."

"I know." McCree's face goes a little soft. "That's not what I meant either, y'know. You died, Reyes--doesn't sound much like surviving to me."

"I had a job to do."

"What the hell could Blackwatch have possibly been doing that made your job more important than your life?"

"I'm not having this argument with you again." Reaper can't keep the annoyance from his voice. They'd had so many variations on this disagreement back before McCree had left--left Blackwatch, left Gabe. None of his reasons had been compelling enough then to convince McCree to stay, and nothing McCree had said had convinced him that leaving was going to be any better.

"Seems to me like there's not much of an argument left to have."

"Right, because you _left me_."

"No," McCree says, his voice an angry hiss, "Because you didn't listen to me and you _died_."

Reaper falters. "That's not--that's not what happened."

"You sure? That's what it looks like from here. That's what I've had to live with every day since you died. And now it turns out you're not dead after all--congratulations, by the way, and fuck you--and we're both going to die here anyway, so it's not like it even matters." McCree closes his mouth abruptly, sitting back against the wall behind him with more force than is probably necessary.

The makeshift structure above them makes an ominous noise.

"We're not going to die here," Reaper says. It's probably better for both of them if they don't acknowledge the ominous noise.

"Maybe _you_ won't, whatever weird undead bullshit you've got going on, maybe you can live forever in this tomb, but some of us need light and food and air, all of which seem like they might wind up in short supply here." McCree's breathing sounds panicked again; this time, Reaper reaches a gloved hand out across the space between them and touches McCree's arm. They both stare down at the point of contact for a long moment before McCree shrugs it off, less viciously than Reaper expects.

"We're not going to die here," Reaper repeats. He starts to pull supplies out of his coat: two more biotic field generators, the meal bars and the jug of water, the grenades he'd kept for himself. "It's not much," he says, "But it should keep you alive for a few days."

"What about you?"

"Weird undead bullshit," Reaper says with a shrug. "We'll be out of here before there's an issue."

"You're pretty confident," McCree says. His voice is a little shaky, but the rise and fall of his chest slows to something almost normal.

Reaper thinks _nothing's ever defeated the two of us together_ but doesn't say it aloud. He doesn't know how much it will help. He's not even sure how _he_ feels about it. Of all the ways he'd predicted their meeting again going, this hadn't even made the list--it had seemed more likely that they'd kill each other than it had that feelings like this would resurface. Reaper didn't _feel_ feelings anymore.

"We can take the grenades and strategically clear the debris," Reaper says instead. "We have to be careful, but we will make it out of here."

.

It's easy to lose track of time, down in the dark. Reaper makes trips up into the debris, mapping their escape plan with McCree when he returns to their space. He knows they've been at it for a while, but he doesn't realize quite how long until he returns from one of his sojourns and finds that McCree has fallen asleep. His eyes are closed, and he's snoring faintly in that way that Reaper remembers somewhere deep inside of him. There was a time when that noise meant calm, warmth, a feeling of safety; even now, it makes some part of him want to slow down, curl up, find that kind of peace.

They _have_ been going for a while, he rationalizes as he settles in. He doesn't usually spend this much time going back and forth with his wraith form, and he's been pretty badly hurt--he's still running hot, his body trying to repair itself while he continues to put it through probably too much. If he doesn't want to have to shoot McCree again, he needs to take this break. Besides, there's not much he can do without McCree, planning-wise, so it's not like he'll be slowing their progress

He stays as far from McCree as he can, lies down and closes his eyes and listens to McCree breathe.

Reaper doesn't usually sleep, but occasionally his body decides that it's time to shut down for maintenance, and he can tell when he opens his eyes again that this must have been one of those times. He feels rested, peaceful; he also notices very quickly that he and McCree seem to be tangled together in a surprisingly comfortable jumble of limbs. He hesitates for a moment, just feeling, before turning to smoke and extracting himself.

The sudden loss of stability causes McCree to jerk awake. His hand is on his gun almost immediately, and it looks like he goes through the motions of drawing it and putting it to Reaper's chest without even thinking. He stops, looks down at the gun and up at Reaper and laughs uneasily.

"Must've dozed off," he says, which Reaper notes is not an apology. "Let's get back to work."

Working with McCree again is...strange. Good, but strange. They'd spent years like this, planning and collaborating, working side by side. He'd spent so long angry at McCree that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like; if Reaper can ignore the constant chill in his bones and the way McCree keeps looking over at him when he thinks he's not paying attention, it's almost like nothing had ever changed.

It's a dangerous feeling, Reaper knows. He sees the looks McCree is giving him, and they feel dangerous too.

.

"Why are you here?" McCree asks him later, through a mouth full of meal bar.

"I don't know if you noticed, but a building fell on top of us. Twice."

"Because I can't work it out," McCree continues, ignoring this completely. "You didn't kill me, even before the mercs showed up. And you haven't tried to make any kind of recruitment pitch--I'm not an idiot, I know you're working with Talon now. Man with my skill set would fit right in with Talon, and I'm honestly a little offended you ain't made me an offer yet."

"Do you _want_ to work for Talon?"

"C'mon, Reyes, that's not an offer. Don't you even want me?"

The question hangs awkwardly in the air between them. A beat too late, Reaper says, "Doomfist has a whole spiel I could give you, if you're interested. I don't know what I could offer you that you would want." _I couldn't get you to stay, so obviously I'm not enough of an enticement by myself,_ he thinks. "But I'm not--Talon doesn't know I'm here."

"That explains the lack of backup," McCree says thoughtfully. "So you don't want to kill me, and you don't want to recruit me. I'm stumped."

"Would you say yes, if I tried to recruit you?" Reaper asks, instead of answering.

McCree doesn't answer either.

.

Finally, they're almost ready to move forward on their plan. Reaper knows where the grenades have to go, and they've rigged up a system to detonate them remotely. If it goes well, they'll be free shortly; if it doesn't, they'll be out of options and maybe crushed to death. They're pretty well out of options now, though, so this will have to do.

McCree unilaterally declares that they're taking a break before they actually pull the trigger on this thing. "I don't know how you're holding up, Gabe," he says, watching Reaper carefully for a reaction that Reaper refuses to give him, "But I'm tired as all get-out, and I don't want the ceiling collapsing on me for a third time when my reflexes ain't at their best. Another couple hours down here isn't going to hurt us, and I need a nap."

Reaper could argue with that but finds, oddly, that he doesn't really want to. McCree positions himself on one side of the tiny space, leaned up against the wall with his legs splayed out in front of him. Reaper folds himself up and tries to stay out of McCree's way, and McCree watches him, apparently amused, from under half-lidded eyes for a while before outright laughing.

"Get over here," McCree says, patting the space beside him.

Reaper scoots his way over, settling in and turning out the slowly-dimming lantern. They're sitting shoulder to shoulder, and Reaper is still, acutely aware of every point of contact between their two bodies. Then, he feels McCree's head rest gently on his shoulder.

"You're a goddamn space heater," McCree says under his breath.

"Thanks, it's my cells," Reaper says. 

"I guessed." McCree pauses, huffs a laugh. "Moira really fucked you up, didn't she."

"She gave me the gun. I'm the one who pulled the trigger, and I'm the one who has to not-quite-live with the consequences." A weighty silence settles between them, and Reaper suddenly feels compelled to fill it before McCree can say _I told you so_. "If I'm too warm, I can go back over there--"

"No, no, stay." McCree is quiet for a moment, and then he says into the darkness, "I missed you, you know. Every goddamn day after I left Blackwatch, I missed you. A couple of times I almost came back."

"Why didn't you?"

"Pride, I guess? Pride, and anger--and besides,  it seemed like you'd made your feelings on the matter pretty clear by that point. I figured if you wanted me back, you'd send someone after me; ain't like I was making myself hard to find."

"Everybody I sent after you came back empty-handed," Reaper says quietly.

McCree sucks in a breath, says nothing. Reaper's sure he's putting the pieces together too.

"After you died, I wondered if things could've gone differently if I'd stayed."

Reaper shakes his head. "Maybe. Or maybe you would've died too."

"There are days when that doesn't sound like such a bad idea," McCree says, almost too quietly to hear.

"I should've left with you. I don't know what would've happened, but you were right--you told me that Blackwatch was killing me, and I didn't listen to you and it did. No matter where I would've ended up after Overwatch, at least I'd have been alive."

"We'd have been together."

Reaper chuckles. "Right, like a guy like you would have been satisfied with somebody like me when you had the whole world in front of you."

"I have the whole world in front of me now," McCree says, "And I'd still take you over anybody."

"You called me a monster."

"You're still Gabe Reyes."

Reaper's not sure that's true, but he doesn't say anything, just leans his head over onto McCree's. "Get some rest, McCree. Maybe things will look different in the light of day."

.

When they finally do detonate the grenades, a lot of things happen very quickly.

The grenades go off exactly as planned, exactly where they'd been placed. The debris, however, does _not_ behave as planned. That had always been a risk of this plan, but one they'd had to take. The small space they'd been occupying since the fight with the mercenaries rattles with the impact, then begins to give way. McCree gives Reaper a panicked look as a large piece of building crashes past him, and Reaper makes a snap decision.

(Snap decisions are what kept him and his team alive, during the Crisis. Snap decisions are probably why the UN gave command of Overwatch to Jack Morrison afterwards, but snap decisions are also what kept him and his people alive in Blackwatch. He'd tried to keep his cool and be rational when Jesse had left, and look where that had gotten him.

Talon doesn't like his snap decisions either.)

What Reaper does is something he's never done before. He's pretty sure he can theoretically do it, but he's never tried it--the opportunity has never presented itself. It might go very badly, but in that split second, he has to decide between them both maybe dying and Jesse McCree almost definitely dying, and he knows immediately what he's going to choose.

"Do you trust me?" he asks McCree.

McCree says, without hesitation, "Yes."

Reaper grabs him, pulls him close, and turns them both to smoke. He barrels upwards in the space the grenades has made for them, dodging pieces of debris, not stopping until they're out in the free air and completely free of what's left of the building. Careful but also elated, he materializes them both side by side on the grass and collapses onto his back, eyes closed, breathing hard. That took a lot more out of him than he expected.

"What the hell was that?" McCree says from somewhere above him.

Reaper opens his eyes to see McCree standing over him, gun drawn. He doesn't have enough energy to muster more than a shrug. "You said it: I'm a monster."

He doesn't close his eyes again; he needs to watch as McCree pulls the trigger. They stare at each other for a long moment down the barrel of McCree's pistol, and then McCree falls to his knees beside Reaper and drops his gun in the grass, and half a second later McCree's fingers are clutching at the lapels of his coat and McCree's lips are pressing hard and desperate against his own.

Reaper kisses him back.

When McCree pulls back, it's not very far. He rests his forehead against Reaper's, eyes closed, and whispers _Gabe_ \--and for the first time in a long time, Reaper thinks he might actually be.

"So do things look different, in the light of day?" Reaper asks when McCree opens his eyes and sits back. (It feels strange, suddenly, to think of himself like that, as _Reaper_. But if not Reaper, who?)

"I've spent years wanting you back," McCree says. "You think I'm gonna let you go now?"

Reaper--Gabe?--sits up, grabs McCree and pulls him close. "When you left Blackwatch...losing you, it nearly killed me."

McCree chuckles.

"What?"

"I'm not sure about 'nearly'," McCree says, grinning.

"I _died_ ," Gabe says, giving McCree a mostly-good-natured shove.

McCree's face goes solemn. "You did."

"I don't want to lose you again. I can't. Last time it killed me." Gabe reaches down and laces his fingers through McCree's.

"I can't join Talon," McCree says, looking away. "You know I can't."

"I know. And I'm not in a position to leave them," Reaper says. "Not yet. Probably not for a while."

McCree goes quiet. "Overwatch put out a recall; Winston's getting the band back together. I haven't answered yet, but...if I did, would anything I could do there help you get out?"

Gabe looks at him with disbelief.

"I don't owe Overwatch a single solitary thing. The way they treated us, the way they treated you? Ain't the kind of thing that inspires loyalty in a man. Only one I've ever owed anything is you."

"We'll make this work," Gabe says, and he kisses McCree again.

**Author's Note:**

> And with this, we've reached the end of SALTapalooza! I still can't quite believe it! Like smarshtastic said last week, we've been working on this for SO LONG that it's hard to believe that it's over! We couldn't have imagined that it would be this big when we started planning in April, and that so many people would have cared about it so much, let alone at all! Thank you all so much for all your excitement, for all your nice comments, and for sticking with us all the way through! It's been a wild, ridiculous ride, and I hope that you've enjoyed it as much as I have. ♥
> 
> Thanks also to smarshtastic, my partner in crime, excellent beta and even better friend. You've been a source of strength and encouragement and joy all the way through this project, and I absolutely wouldn't have made it without you. ♥♥♥


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